Local Kids Learn Get Hands-on With the Sea in the Classroom

Some kids in Hampden got to experience a bit of Maine’s ocean life on Friday, and they never even left their classroom. Coolers full of crabs, clams and lobster gave students at Highland Preschool a chance to touch the sea.Dwight Carver, a lobsterman on Beals Island, brought in some of his catch to share with the kids.A first for many of them.Mira, a 5-year-old, says, “One time when I went to Boston, I saw a lobster tank and I always looked at the lobsters in there,” said one student.Here we live in Maine, and we have all of those resources and I think a lot of times, the children don’t get to experience them,” said Highland Preschool Director, Tami Campbell. “So this was wonderful for them to see everything up close and to be able to touch it and feel it.”5-year-old Josh says the best part was, “Seeing the lobsters, because I pretended to use them an airplane and I lifted one up and I was like this, ‘Wee, I’m flying! Wee, wee.'”They also got to learn about what it takes to make a living off the ocean. “If you love your work, it isn’t work, and again I’m very fortunate because I know a lot of people probably don’t like their job as well as I do,” Carver says.Campbell says she’s pretty sure the memories of all these sea creatures will stick with the students for awhile. “I hope the next time their parents take to them to the beach, that they will recognize something and will say, ‘oh, we saw this in school,’ or they’ll go home and tell their parents a spider crab has 8 legs!””I think a lot of us, the folks that do this for a living, take that for granted,” Carver remarked. “And our kids were able to be brought up with it and everything. So for these kids, its really neat.”Carver’s the grandfather of one of the students.He got to visit a couple of years ago when another grandchild was in school there, too.